Fethullah Gulen - Upbringing

(Video Duration: 4 mins. 19 secs.)

The future of every individual is closely related to the impressions and influences experienced during childhood and youth. If children and young people are brought up in a climate where their enthusiasm is stimulated with higher feelings they will have vigorous minds and display good morals and virtues.

Little attention and importance is given to teaching cultural values although they are essential to education. When we give them their deserved importance we shall have reached a major objective.

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Fethullah Gulen - Children

(Video Duration: 2 mins. 34 secs.)

Adam the first man and Eve the first woman were created together at the very beginning of human existence. This indicates that marriage is natural. Reproduction is the most important purpose of this natural state. A marriage made for reasons other than bringing up new generations is no more than a temporary entertainment and adventure. The children who come into the world through such a marriage are the unfortunate products of a transient emotion.

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Fethullah Gulen - The Rights of Children

(Video Duration: 3 mins. 19 secs.)

A child has the same meaning for humanity's continuation as a seed for a forest's continued growth and multiplication. People who neglect their children decay gradually and those who abandon them to a foreign culture risk losing their identity.

Children form the most active and productive part of a community after every thirty or forty years. Those who ignore their young children should consider how important an element of their own community's life they are disregarding and then shudder.

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Fethullah Gulen - The Rights of Parents

(Video Duration: 3 mins. 18 secs.)

Respect of parents is a primary and sacred obligation. If you do not respect your parents you are disobeying God Almighty. Those who treat their parents badly eventually are treated badly by others.

From the very moment of conception a growing and developing child is a care and responsibility for its parents. One cannot estimate the depth of attachment and compassion parents feel for their children or calculate the troubles and hardships they endure because of them. For this reason respecting parents is a debt of human gratitude as well as a religious obligation.

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